CHRISTCHURCH TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 992, 16 May 1911, Page 3

CHRISTCHURCH TRAGEDY.

In his charge to the Grand Jury at the Supreme Court, Christchurch, yesterday morning, Mr Justice Dcnnistou, referring to the Cashel street mystery, in connection with which Henry Alexander Jack and Walter Richard Sadler stand committed for trial on a charge of having murdered Ethel Bradley, said the jury would confine its attention strictly to the evidence that was before it. The case was a peculiar one, but the jury would have to decide simply whether there was sufficient evidence to establish a •irima facie case against both or either to go before a jury. The jury would find a true bill unless it was satisfied that the evidence was such that a jury of sensible men could not find a man guilty on. The case was peculiar in that two men were jointly charged with having jointly committed the murilv. There was potent evidence ultcicu by the Crown against one ol the accused, which could not be admitted against the other. At a later stage in the proceeding Sadler had made a statement giving the movements of himself and Jack on the night of the alleged murder, hut that statement, while it could be used against him, could not as a matter of law be admitted as evidence against Jack. There was nothing in the evidence to connect Sadler directly with the woman except the statement made by him

d the evidence that the woman .•as taken to his shop and that he was seen with Jack. The tact that the statements made by the two accused were contradictory was not in itself evidence. If Sadler’s story were true it was quite conceivable that the two men should wish to conceal their connection with the matter as long as possible, and in that case would probably tell lies. A true bill was found against Jack and Sadler.